Hero Here and Gone
by false sourires
Summary: Introspective. A Hero never permanently leaves, but stays with us in hope.


Disclaimer: Too uncreative to claim credit for Hetalia.

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><p><strong>Hero Here and Gone<strong>

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><p>"<em>I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." <em>_**Martin Luther King Jr.**_

He owes a great deal to his people. They are his lifeblood and soul. Every day he shares their happiness, their worries, their pain, their fear, their hope and their dreams. They are his, and he loves them passionately and possessively. At once he is both parent and child to his people. It was their ideals and obstinacy that brought about his existence and allowed him to grow from a tiny fragile colony into the strong proud country he is today. They created his backbone and in return he holds all their history. Death, pain, love and birth were all embodied in his personification. He is as proud of his children as any parent can be, but like all parents he can only nurture his children so far. All he wants is the best for them. One cannot always get what they want though, so he must watch as some children succeed and others fall. He is witness to their worst and best moments and everything in between. As a country he must rely on them to set the paths.

"_If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream."_

_**Martin Luther King Jr.**_

As a country that loves superheroes with an unparalleled passion it is difficult to stand on the sidelines as an observer. Too many times he has been admonished by the older countries for being too unrestrained and enthusiastic in his desire to involve himself in the affairs of his children. To give them that shining city on a hill they dreamed of. Young. Foolish. Naïve. How he hated those words. He may not be oldest nation, but he was hardly as young as they claimed. Who knew better than him the atrocities and injustices that his people committed? Could anyone claim to know the scars his body bore more than him? The intense moments of furious bitter self-hatred that plagued him intermittently as his people hated and demeaned one another? He doubted it. Hatred was a terrible bitterness in the soul, and he wished more than anything that his children wouldn't ever have to experience it. Annoyingly, life is not fair because he wishes it to be so. That didn't mean he couldn't try and make it more so, which is why he admired those children of his that spoke out against the silence at the unfairness surrounding them.

"_The greatest purveyor of violence in the world: My own Government, I cannot be Silent." __**Martin Luther King Jr.**_

His constitution was made by visionaries that wanted to change the accepted rule of the world. Amusingly, they never understood how much change would be encompassed by that one document. Frustratingly, he had to wait centuries to see the violations against his laws undone.

Many of his deceased presidents could testify to the _forced_ patience he suffered waiting for his laws to be available to all his children. Several could attest to the lack of passive patience on his part. Jackson never did tell anyone where he got that concussion from, or why he never attempted to force his personification back to the capital after he stormed out west for the rest of Jackson's tenure in office. Later when his mind had cleared he had been horrified that he had raised his hand against one of his bosses- a simple shove had concussed a president. As a rule, he never used his strength against humans. Ever since that time, he had never touched a boss when angry- instead he focused it on the surrounding furniture. Needless to say, there was a reason many of the presidents had to redecorate the White House.

"_We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now." _

_**Martin Luther King Jr.**_

Violence rarely solved anything anyways. Too many of his children had shown him that. The Civil War had resulted in the end of slavery, but it had done nothing to end the bitterness, fear and resentment felt by his children. Isolated as he had been back then, no one had seen the abuse he inflicted on himself in self-loathing. Not all festering wounds were visible after all. While he could not deny that animosity and prejudice still resided among his people, he could admit it was not as all consuming as it had once been. Fewer and fewer were the self-inflicted abuses. He hoped the trend would continue as time went on. Hating oneself was so tiring and unnecessary. Not to mention what it did to loved ones.

"_Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."_ _**Martin Luther King Jr.**_

Young as he had been, he thought he hid his wounds so cleverly. Humans have never been good at interpreting the biology of nations. Manifest Destiny and industrialism had augmented his rapid healing so his cuts were often the shiny pink of new skin in no time. Most kept quiet at the sight of various pink lines, if any noticed at all. Not everyone was a silent witness though. Some of his most perceptive children saw past his false cheery smiled and scowled. They went on to protest and battle against the sores that plagued him so violently. Moreover, they did it with signs and banners rather than guns and stones. Never had he been more boggled, conflicted and amazed than when he witnessed his children sitting down in lines to overcome the adversity they faced. His heart had beat so rapidly with timorous overwhelming hope during the Civil Rights Movements as people marched down the streets in protest against injustice. It was an era that filled him with so much pride and hope for his people that he didn't know if he would ever achieve such emotion again. Only true radiant smiles had room to exist in that era.

"_One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."_

_**Martin Luther King Jr.**_

Today he stood in front of a monument that had been too long in coming to remember the hope that his hero had given him. To his children. A hero who demanded an end to the passive observation of injustice. More so than hope, his hero had given them a dream. A dream that had yet to end and one that he eagerly desired to become reality. As a parent he wished nothing more than to see his children's dreams come true.

"_I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."_

_**Martin Luther King Jr.**_

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I saw that there were no MLK Jr. fics up today, and decided since my school doesn't observe MLK day that I would write a fic in honor of it. I can't say I did justice for such a notable man, only that I thought America shouldn't forget all that he accomplished. The title means even though MLK Jr. passed away his dream and ideals are still here in the present. As for the plethora of quotes: I just love quotes.

To my knowledge the part with Andrew Jackson was completely made up. I hate to think that America would have stood a passive witness to the Trail of Tears and Jackson's violation of the Supreme Court ruling. In my mind he would have left DC until Jackson was out of office. I also doubt he would actively hurt one of his bosses for fear of his superhuman strength killing them. I also chose to interpret Civil Wars as causing the nations mental disorders, so America would have been relatively unstable after the Civil War. Growing industrialization and settling of the west would have caused most of his self-inflicted wounds to be healed.

Hope you enjoyed.

~False Sourires


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